Gratitude

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No Guarantees

September 23, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 2 comments

I was asked by a colleague to answer a few questions about coming to that place of willingness, that turning point, to describe the moment I could see myself and my disease clearly. I’ve been concerned about keeping my ego out of the way so that I can offer authentic answers, answers that reflect the weight and gravity of the experience, in hopes that the story will be useful to someone. I’ve been re-reading my old writing. I rode my bike yesterday to the corner where I finally broke down. I have completely reconnected with the pain and the hopelessness that brought me to my knees; the point where I surrendered to the idea that I was never going to be able to get high without destroying my life and the lives of those around me.

When I had that moment of clarity and was able to see the truth about myself and my disease and finally became willing to ask for and accept spiritual help I was led to the one man perhaps most uniquely qualified to take me to the solution. I knew this man. I trusted him. I could see that he was living a principled life and I knew that there was no earthly way that he could become the man he was in light of the man he had been. A transformation like that requires a greater power. Somewhere I was given the willingness to do a few simple things to follow this man down the path. So far the road has been pretty clear and dry; not too tough a go, even considering the pain I was obviously in during the first 2 months. I’ve been very lucky.

I wrote the other day, though, that there is no guarantee that even under the most favorable conditions I’ll make it to the other side of the desert. My friend pulled me aside last Thursday night to tell me that he’d been drunk the night before; that he hadn’t made it. I responded with detachment, compassion, concern. Obviously I would need to find a new spiritual advisor. Thats fine, I thought. The whole next day I imagined that I hadn’t been too disturbed by the news at all. Friday evening, however, in a small meeting with some close friends, it suddenly occurred to me that someone I love who suffers with the disease of addiction, someone who is hopeless and helpless like me, someone who had put everything he had into grabbing on to and holding on to this thing we call ‘recovery’ — had not made it across the desert. Though my friend seemed, at the moment, to have gotten back on the wagon, to be back in the group and back in the work, one can never know for sure. My own experience has been that one little incident, even followed by rigorous effort to get back, often, perhaps usually, takes one right back to the place I was before I became willing to ask for help. One little slip sends me straight off the highway. I hate crying in public. I did it but I hated doing it. I’m worried for him and I’m worried for myself and I’m heartbroken.

There is not guarantee that we make it to permanent sobriety. Even with a spiritual program many of us miss the mark. After all, we’re only human. And being human, many, if not most of us, will fail at gaining victory over addiction. It is a baffling enemy. We can just do our best, seek guidance from those who have gone before us and trust the Man With the Star.

It’s Good to be Sober. It’s Good to be Alive.

September 3, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | No comments

Neither is really a condition I thought would persist for much longer as recently as last December. I am, quite frankly, astonished; both by how bad things had become and by how much better it’s gotten. If you show up in a 12 step program (like I did) and grab on to it with “the desperation of a drowning man” (like I did), a number of things become clear, not immediately, but pretty quickly, provided of course that you do the work. For me, one of the things that I noticed by about my 3rd month clean and sober was that some of the people who made sense to me when I walked in the door no longer made any sense at all. Others make more and more sense over time.

One of the men who falls into the latter group tells a story about coming to a place where life had become so painful that he decided to bring things to an end; he overdosed hoping to die. The very next thing he did was call 911. He realized that he didn’t really want to die. He just didn’t know how to live. That is a story I really identify with; not wanting to die but not knowing how to go on.

At one point, near the end of my use, I was sitting at the front door of a ‘friend’. The IFX was there. He was supposed to have come by my place three hours earlier, one of the times when I actually needed his help with something and one of the astonishing number of times he let me down. I tried calling from the security phone. No one would answer. I managed to get in and knocked on the door. No one answered. I sat in front of the door and waited. I could hear them talking inside. I knocked again. Silence. IFX was kind of a knife obsessed kind of thug and for some reason I happened to have one of his knives on me at the time. So there I sat, at my ‘friend’s’ front door, listening to the object of my affection, who’s neglectful actions were at that very moment mounting harm on me, and my ‘friend’ talk about how crazy I was (and I’m sure I was, obviously). I took out IFX’s knife, which he sharpened obsessively, and figured this was as good a place and as good a time as any to bring the pain I was in to an end. But, pressing the edge of that blade into my wrist, I realized how easy it would be to go that way; how a truely sharp instrument really wouldn’t hurt at all. That wasn’t what I wanted, after all. I wanted him to hurt the way he had hurt me and I wanted to stop hurting. I kicked my ‘friend’s’ door and screamed some obscenities, left the building, walked to the parking lot in the strip mall next door where the IFX626 was parked and there, in broad daylight, in full view of several onlookers, took his knife and slashed his tires.

In all honesty I felt some relief; enough to face a few more days, but not much more. Yet that was my condition when I reached out for help. I was afraid to die but I didn’t know how to live. I couldn’t continue on, yet I couldn’t stop. After the knife story I had just enough left in me to propel myself in the direction of someone who could show me the way out of the mess my life had become. It took several months, though, to discern who in ‘the rooms’ had a solution. If you’re new to recovery and you’re doing the 12 step thing the way I am, give yourself some time there. Don’t feel compelled to talk at each and every meeting. Be present. Be still. See who only shares when they’re called on and among those see who reaches out to new people. Listen for them to talk about hopelessness and about finding a solution. Find one of the people that does those things and who you think you might be able to trust, introduce yourself to them and demand that they show you how they did it. They will. They’ll be more than glad too.

It’s good to be sober, today. It’s good to be alive. By the grace of God I haven’t had to imbibe, ingest, inhale or inject anything to change who I am today and for a guy like me that’s a miracle.

In the Right Place at the Perfect Time

August 25, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | No comments

In the Spiritual Experience it talks about the change that takes place for those of us in recovery being apparent to others long before we realize it ourselves.  I’ve spent a bit of time recently looking at my older posts and it’s clear to me that I have indeed come a  long way.  I’d like to say that it hasn’t taken any effort.  It doesn’t seem like it has.  Mostly what I’ve done is “suit up and show up.”  We hear that “meeting makers make it.”  I’ve certainly done my share of meetings, even now averaging two on weekdays and often four on weekends.  In my first 90 days out of the Walker Center I easily went to 240 meetings.“Meeting makers make it” is really only a half truth, though.  “Meeting makers make it” if they do the steps.  And I have been.  Granted, I’ve balked a bit at my 4th step work recently, actually putting the work down for about four days.  My sponsor kindly (for once) pointed out last night that the book says “at some of these we balked,” not “some of us balked at these.”

I’ve been working at job I didn’t think I deserved, at the place I didn’t dare apply, in the body of a person who hadn’t been employable for over three years.  Because I’m grateful for that, and because it is what I believe my Creator would have me do, I show up on time and do my job to the best of my ability and do it cheerfully.  Yesterday my employer gave me a huge promotion.  A huge promotion.  From part-time to full time.  A 30% raise (I’ll actually be able to live now).  A company car.  And an interesting, challenging and fun job which my particular, bizarre skill set and temperament makes me uniquely suited for.  All I’ve done is “suit up and show up” and do what my Creator would have me do.

For once I’m clear that this “could hardly have been accomplished” on my own.  After the meeting with my boss I picked up a pen and started working on my 4th step again.

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